THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 87 



light in all its stages, —egg, larva, pupa, and imago. I 

 think it probable that D. R. I. has seen larvae only, at this 

 season. 



Queen Wasps. — There is nothing unusual in the fact of a 

 queen wasp being abroad at this time of year. G. G. C. and 

 other correspondents, who have noticed them, are referred to 

 Mr. Frederick Smith's ' Catalogue of Fossorial Hjmenop- 

 tera,' p. 211, and Dr. Ormerod, in his ' British SocialWasps,' 

 p. 186, has fully explained this. A feV lines from Dr. 

 Ormerod are worth quoting : — " With the first promise of 

 spring, with the violet and primrose, with the snake and the 

 bee, on the same bank from which the warmth of the sun 

 has called them forth, the mother wasp enters into active 

 life. During the cold wet winter months she has sheltered 

 herself, as she best might, in dry banks or old walls, in the 

 folds of curtains, or in the toes of shoes laid by, like herself, 

 for a season ; and if, by chance, she has been disturbed from 

 her hiding-place, dusty, half torpid, she has seemed more like 

 an outcast from her old nest than the future mother of a 

 colony. But all this is altered now ; and as she flies quietly 

 along examining each crevice in quest of a proper place to 

 build her nest in, the eye of the gardener recognizes in her 

 no helpless wanderer seeking a hiding-place, but an instru- 

 ment of destruction, which he will do well to crush in the 

 bud." Every March these queens have a fearful ordeal to 

 pass through, because such large insects are sure not only to 

 attract the notice of gardeners, — and of that section of the 

 scientific public who delight in " curiosities," and in commu- 

 nicating their discoveries lo various periodicals, which always 

 thankfully receive them, — but in many places there is an 

 organization, a sort of crusade, against queen wasps in 

 March ; and little boys prefer the remuneration offered for 

 killing them lo attending their schools, where the curri- 

 culum of study is somewhat more monotonous. 



Lepiiloptera at tlie British Museum. — Happening to be in 

 London a short time ago 1 made my way to the British 

 Museum, feeling sure I should find a fine collection of our 

 British moths and butterflies in good condition. You may 

 imagine my disappointment, as the poor bleached represen- 

 tatives of our Lepidoptera met my eyes. Surely it would not 

 be too much to ask that curtains should be provided for this 



